


The World’s Greatest Detective

by Tea_EarlGrey_Hot



Category: Batman (Comics), Justice League & Justice League Unlimited (Cartoons), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle, Superman (Comics), Superman/Batman (Comics)
Genre: Crossover, Friendship/Love, Gen, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 13:16:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9659063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tea_EarlGrey_Hot/pseuds/Tea_EarlGrey_Hot
Summary: A case of mistaken identity leaves Batman and Superman in a tricky situation.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deadseasalt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadseasalt/gifts).



“I want you to know, from the bottom of my cold, stone heart, I hate you. I hate you so very very much sometimes it surprises even me.”  

“Are you finished?”

“No, actually, I’m not. I hate your chiselled jaw, and your damn piercing blue eyes, and your ridiculous muscles, and most of all I hate that you’re too breathtakingly stupid to realize that you are not, in fact, _magic_ and should, consequently, _think_ about things _before_ we get strung up by our ankles like this.”

“I see.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah: you think I have a chiselled jaw.”

“If we get out of this alive, I’m going to kill you.”

“Well… If it makes you feel better, we probably won’t make it out alive.”

“I want it carved on your tombstone: Kal-el of Krypton – Alien. Superhero. Moron. Killed because he didn’t know when to shut up.”

“But damn, he sure had ridiculous muscles.”

Batman tried to glare at Kal through the darkness but the effect was somewhat ruined by the dangling cape obscuring his view. He settled for squinting in the general direction of his cell-mate’s voice.

“Ridiculous muscles that prove useless against Kryptonite-forged chains, because it is somehow _still_ a shock to you that the bad guys occasionally have access to the one thing that renders you completely and utterly useless.”

                “Yes, I certainly am foolish compared to the World’s Greatest Detective who walked straight into perhaps the most obviously-a-trap scenario that has ever been conceived.”

                “You’re welcome.”

                “My hero.” Kal’s dry sense of humour always caught Batman a little by surprise. Even hanging by their ankles from the ceiling of a damp, underground jail cell in the most godforsaken quarter of Gotham’s industrial sector, Kal somehow always found a way to crack a joke. It was absolutely infuriating. Couldn’t he take anything seriously?  

                “I hate your tights too.”

                “Yeah, you’re right, a bat costume is way more practical and aerodynamic.”

                “People are scared of bats.”

                “Name five.”

                “I should have left you here to die.”

                “Seems that way, doesn’t it?”

                Batman might have laughed at that, if he was that sort of person. But he wasn’t. He was Batman. And Batman did _not_ laugh and Kal-el’s – or anyone else’s – stupid jokes.

                The cell’s requisite rusty-door screeched open. _Here we go_ , Batman thought. _Finally, something to do_.

                It occurred to him that he and Kal should have taken bets on who exactly was holding them captive this time – it might have distracted him from how much he wanted to strangle Kal with the Kryptonite chain currently wrapped around his ankles.

                There were a few beats of silence.

                “I must say, Mr. Holmes, your choice of attire certainly has changed since last we met.”

                Batman had been expecting Lex Luthor’s lazy drawl or even the Joker’s spine-tingling cackle – but this voice, with an affected London accent and an archaic turn-of-phrase, was entirely new.

                “B, is this one of yours?” Kal asked.

                “No,” Batman growled. “I would have assumed he was one of yours.”

                “Mr. Holmes,” the voice continued – Batman dearly wished he had devised a method to retract his cape for just such a situation because being blind was not in any way desirable. “Let us not play games with each other. We both know who is hiding behind that rather silly mask.”

                Kal snorted.

                _People_ are _afraid of bats_. Batman thought, mutinously.

                “Everybody knows,” the voice continued, and Batman could hear him pacing across the cement floor, “that the Man of Steel is in cahoots with The World’s Greatest Detective, and there is only one possible person that could be—so here I am, after all these years, and finally you are in my power.” He paused. “Though, I must say, this new assistant is much more… put together… than your last.”

                “It’s the ridiculous muscles,” Kal said, and Batman could _hear_ the infuriating smile in his voice.  

                “If you could stop _bantering_ with our captor, that would be very helpful.” Batman sighed.

                “Just passing the time.”

                “Well stop.”

                “Enough!” the voice said. “It is time for you to admit defeat and surrender to your fate, Sherlock Holmes!”

                There were a few more beats of silence. Batman thought he heard water drip in the distance.

                “Who?” Kal asked, sounding casual as a country-reporter covering a barn-raising (or whatever it was that made news in Kansas).

                The voice sighed the sort of full-body sigh that Batman often felt welling up inside him after spending more than an hour in the company of the Man of Steel. No one did infuriating quite like Kal-el. Batman sometimes wondered if that was where Robin had picked up that behaviour; he hadn’t picked it up from Batman, that was for damn sure. He emphasized self-control in all of his children’s training.

                “Don’t tell me this… be-tighted imbecile of yours doesn’t _know_ who you are, Mr. Holmes. Surely even you can’t be so… melodramatic… as to have created two entirely separate lives for yourself?”

                “Yes, Mr. Holmes,” Kal mimicked. “Surely not.”

                Batman was getting a migraine.

                “I’m afraid you have me mistaken for someone else.” Batman hoped to, at the very least, not aggravate the man smart enough to kidnap Superman and Batman even more than Kal already had.  

                “We both know I don’t make mistakes, Mr. Holmes. And now, I will kill your sidekick in front of your eyes, and then I will kill you.”

                _Not in my town._ Batman thought.

                “How can you do anything ‘in front of my eyes’ when I can’t see?” Batman asked.

                “Excellent point,” the man said. “Sebastian, be a dear and let Mr. Holmes down.”

                The sound of more footsteps. Batman tensed his body, waiting. He felt a tug, the chains around his ankles loosened, and he fell, twisting around at the last second so he rolled when he hit the floor. But before he could right himself, he heard a click.

                “If you try anything funny, Sebastian will shoot you right through the eye-socket of that, again, tremendously unnecessary mask, won’t you Sebastian?” the voice said, sweetly. There was a grunt in reply. Batman froze in a crouch, taking a moment to absorb the scene in front of him.

                A thin, older man in a tweed jacket was standing over by Kal, holding a knife the same green as the chains. A bigger, younger man stood off to the side and held a gun levelled at Batman’s face. And Kal still hung by his ankles from the ceiling looking like he’d just gone a few rounds in a cage with Zod. Batman and Kal made eye-contact, and a plan took shape in the back of Batman’s mind.

                “I don’t know you, I’m not Sherlock Holmes.” Batman said, hoping to draw the man’s attention away from Kal.

                “You are the World’s Greatest Detective, are you not?”

                “Yes.”

                “Then why deny it? Honestly, you’ve let yourself go, Mr. Holmes. The cape, the cowl, the frankly ridiculous sidekick… It’s all a bit much, wouldn’t you agree?”

                Batman really hopes Kal remembered the signal. If he didn’t, this was going to go south faster than that time Flash had challenged Diana to an arm-wrestling contest – the table in the Watchtower had never recovered.

                “I’m not Sherlock Holmes.” Batman said, looking directly at the man in the tweed jacket, willing him not to turn around. “ _I’m Batman_.”

                Batman rolled sideways, kicking out at the man with the gun and sending him flying into the back wall of the cell before he could react. He collapsed, unconscious, on the cement floor. Batman took the man’s gun and turned to help Kal, only to find the tweed-wearing man out cold on the ground below Kal, still hanging upside down.

                “I hate that signal,” Kal said, conversationally.

                “Sidekicks don’t get a say in what the signal is.” Batman said.

                Kal laughed. “B, was that a _joke_? Are you feeling okay?”

                “Shut up or I’ll leave you here.” Batman growled, but set about dismantling the trap that had snared Kal all the same.

                He lowered Kal down perhaps a little less gently than was entirely polite, and watched as he disentangled his ankles from the green metal.

                “Well, that was certainly unusual.” Kal said, struggling to his feet and stepping gingerly away from the pile of Kryptonite.

                “He clearly mistook me for someone else.”

                “Figure that out all by your self, did you? You really _are_ the World’s Greatest Detective.”

                “Have I told you how much I hate you?”


End file.
